Puns and other obsessions. A trip inside an OCD mind.

Depression and Life by Suicide

This is going to be my darkest post so far. It deals with death. Not the physical state of being dead but the mental one as well as wishing to die in order to end the pain. People with mental disorders wish death upon themselves or even commit suicide not because they don’t want their lives to continue, but because they want their suffering to end. Suffering is a very big word some might think, but believe me it still underestimates what one passes through and cannot convey what it is to truly have a mental disorder push someone into depression.

To me depression feels like sitting alone in a dark room where the walls touch you on both sides and your head hits the ceiling. That’s not just it. The walls seem to be moving closer, tightening you ever so more. Thinking of anything may bother you and cause you greater sadness. Even if you think of a happy thing, the simple notion that you are unable to feel happy for this happy thought makes you go deeper into depression and despair. In its essence, depression is a vicious circle. The more you try to get out of it, it pulls you deeper. Just like quick sand, the more you try, the deeper you go. The only solution is to let someone pull you out of it. But for depressed people, asking for help isn’t as easy as it looks. That’s when their thoughts push them toward ending their life.

Mostly people who suffer from depression tend to have suicidal thoughts. A number of these individuals go through with it. People feel that nothing will make them feel better. They think this is the end. Depression causes one to lose interest in almost everything especially the things he likes and enjoys. Losing interest makes life not worth living. Imagine you lose joy in eating, in going out, in talking to anyone. You basically lose interest in living. This makes people go toward something that seems easy and doesn’t need more than one person to accomplish. It’s the only thing they think is the solution. It’s the easiest. It’s the quickest and to them, the most efficient. It’s not a coward or selfish move. It’s a desperation move. It’s the last shot (no pun intended). It seems to them like through suicide they will finally live without pain.

In my case, I think most probably depression was caused by obsessive behavior and intrusive thoughts. It was as if I lost control of my thoughts and my brain was dictating what I should be thinking of. It almost always dictated I think of the negative side of things. Almost all things. Negative thoughts cause negative feelings and with time, depression. It’s a very difficult thing knowing that you cannot trust your brain and don’t have control over it. The brain controls itself and you can do nothing but watch and feel like crap. That’s when my thoughts of “I want to die”, or starting to think of how much rest I might have have I been dead. Thinking of death is probably the only thought that generates good feelings, so logically it seems as the right thing to do.

So let’s not blame those who have killed themselves. Let’s not call them cowards. Let’s not call them selfish. Let’s not call them losers. They did not have weak personalities. They were warriors who tried to overcome a huge obstacle. Let’s instead learn from their death and work on helping people with depression. Let’s work on knowing that disease better and show every person in one’s life that he’s not alone, you might not know who might have depression. Let’s break the taboo and stop making fun of people seeing a psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, or a shrink. And let’s stop belittling what they are going through.